


This is Growing Up

by frogy



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-25
Updated: 2011-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:06:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eventually, their feet will be planted firmly on solid ground. When they wake up together, it will be just another morning. If they'll walk down their block to get coffee, hand in hand, it won't be a big deal. But for now, each step is a leap of faith in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Growing Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wordplay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordplay/gifts).



> For wordplay for the beyond_dapper LJ comm mini-hiatus exchange. The title is taken from Blink182's Dammit (or more accurately, Darren Criss's cover of it). Thanks ccmskatechick for the beta. Warning for vague mention of spoilers for 3x05.

It's cliché for a reason, doing it for the first time on prom night, but that's when they take the next step.

Puck reserves the block of four rooms with his fake ID. One's for Mike and Tina and two are for "Whoever, wherever, as long as I can get laid," Puck tells them as he indiscriminately hands out the keys after picking them up at the front desk. Rachel tries to intervene, grabbing for the keys so that one room's for the girls, the other for the boys. Rachel went to prom with Finn, who she's dating again, but not for long enough in the never-ending on-again, off-again saga that is their relationship for Finn to even bother broaching the after-prom possibilities. It winds up not mattering, all the unattached, sort-of-attached, and newly attached people in the group piling into one room, on beds, in chairs, on the floor to keep the night going forever in a way that they're all starting to realize high school won't.

The last room is for Kurt and Blaine. Kurt is the one to ask Puck for it. Puck's response is a painful, bro-punch to the shoulder and a "Way to go, Hummel." Blaine buys the supplies. Kurt's not sure which one of them drew the short straw.

The days after prom speed by. There are finals for Blaine to panic about; the last grades on his transcript before he applies to college. He has to get into Columbia because Kurt will be in New York and if he doesn't then who knows where his parents will make him go to, but there's no way they can argue against Columbia's academic reputation. Kurt largely coasts through finals, already set with school for the next year. Then, he's gone for the weekend, out in New York for orientation for next year, then there's graduation and it's all over in a whirlwind. Kurt keeps catching himself referencing "yesterday," when the event in question is last month, and "a couple of days ago" when he really means this morning.

They have a couple of pockets of quiet. There's an afternoon where Kurt quizzes himself on French flash cards stretched out on the couch with his feet in Blaine's lap while Blaine studies, trying to remember what happened in Ethan Frome, all followed by a movie night where Kurt falls asleep with his head in Blaine's lap. There's one day where Kurt shows up at Blaine's house with a giant milk shake and two straws to rescue Blaine from drowning in his Chem notes.

Then it's graduation itself. Blaine sits with Burt and Carol in the stands to watch Kurt walk across that stage. Kurt's wearing a full three-piece under his graduation robes and mortar-board hat, sitting in his folding chair set up out on the field. Blaine doesn't know how Kurt's not dying of heat. Blaine's wilting twice as much as the bouquet in his lap, wearing half as many clothes as Kurt. Kurt throws his arms around Blaine in an excited hug when Blaine presents the flowers to him. The heat's fine when it's due to Kurt being pressed against him.

Senior Prom was nothing like Junior Prom. The dance itself is utterly forgettable. They get there late, leave early, and there's some utterly forgettable dancing in between. There's a real DJ and a lot more songs about saying goodbye.

They talked about it beforehand; whether they were going to do it at all, if they're really going to be a prom night couple, if this is what _really_ counts as loosing their virginities when they've been sexually active all year. Kurt wrinkles his nose when Blaine asks just that because he can't imagine a more awkward name for a less awkward thing. That first fumbled time in the back of Blaine's car started an avalanche; every moment they could get alone is spent learning the rush of power of Blaine falling apart to Kurt's hand on his dick, Blaine on his knees for Kurt and every possible combination thereof until there stopped being a tangle of nerves in the pit of his stomach to temper the pleasure. That, more than anything, convinces Kurt. Everything else seemed like so much less of a big deal from the other side of doing them. This still feels like a big deal.

That logic doesn't follow through at any level. It's the first week of summer before they're alone together again. They're at Blaine's house, sun streaming through the picture window winning the battle against the central air to make the hardwood floors delightfully warm under Kurt's feet. You have to take your shoes off at Blaine's house. They don't have plans for the day beyond where they are and Blaine spins around in his hello, saying they can hang out in the living room or the den or upstairs in his room.

Kurt's not thinking of anything particular when he agrees with the upstairs option. He follows Blaine up the stairs and into his room. "I still have condoms," Blaine says. It startles Kurt and he stops just a few steps into the room. Blaine looks back at Kurt from where he's standing in the middle of the room. His bed is behind him. Kurt looks away. To the left is Blaine's desk and Kurt's eyes settle there. The desk is a veritable museum of Blaine's life, junior soccer trophies, Hardy Boys mysteries and a framed elementary school class photo next to one of the Warblers. It was less awkward at the motel, when it was planned, somewhere new for something new. Here, with two dozen ten year olds and their old glee club members, two years younger, staring out at them from the photos, it feels sprung on him.

They do it for the second time a week later, after Rachel's graduation barbeque. They sort of talk about it beforehand. The logistics are less awkward than the first time because they're less about logistics. Santana and Puck are on booze duty because Rachel's disappearing dads have once again pulled a vanishing act. Kurt's driving, and as they pull up to the Berry residence, Kurt asks Blaine not to drink tonight. Kurt told his dad that he was staying at Rachel's, that everyone was staying at Rachel's. That's not the complete truth. Finn wanted to stay at Rachel's, and the only way that would be okayed was if it were a group thing.

The lie's not totally selfless. Kurt has a whole night free to spend in Blaine's bed and he has plans for it. When Blaine wants to know why he shouldn't drink, Kurt fills him in on his plans. "I thought we could have sex tonight." He's blushing so hard it feels like his face is on fire.

Santana offers Blaine a drink when they enter the backyard. "Made just for you, it's all fruity and shit." She's gone to the nines with the bar she's set up on the white resin table, covered with a red plastic tablecloth. With that assortment of bottles and mixers, the drink is probably as fruity as advertised.

Blaine turns her down. "What, are you designated driver or something?" she asks. "Does that mean Hummel's drinking? Here," she shoves the drink at Kurt. He thinks she's already had a couple. "You're as fruity as your boytoy."

"I'm not drinking either," Kurt tells her. Santana narrows her eyes at them, like she knows something is up. Artie saves the day, wheeling up, looking for a drink.

When they have an apartment in New York, they'll be social drinkers. Kurt pictures them hosting dinner parties, drinking red wine in long-stemmed wine glasses when someone will complement him on his pâté and everything will be fabulous. It won't be the way Blaine sometimes drinks now, in a desperate way, like he's looking to forget. By then, Blaine will have nothing that he wants to erase from his life. But for now, Kurt leaves the dinner parties off the New York dreams he spins for Blaine, curled up together in Blaine's bed that afternoon they don't have sex.

Kurt surprised himself the first time when he didn't cry. Blaine did. After, when they lay tangled together, sweaty and warm, Kurt wiped Blaine's tears away with his thumb. Blaine's voice is hoarse when he speaks; rough in the space between them. "Is it too cliché to tell you ‘I love you,' right now?"

"It's prom night," Kurt says, voice barely above a whisper. "I don't think we can get any more cliché." Their heads are on the same pillow. Blaine is so close that Kurt's whole field of vision is his eyes.

Kurt looks down to watch Blaine's mouth when he speaks. "You're supposed to tell me you love me too." Before Kurt can answer, there's shrieking in the distinct cadence of Santana yelling in Spanish from the next room.

"It sounds like everyone's having a good night next there too," Kurt says. "And of course I love you."

Of course Kurt loves Blaine. And maybe last night he got off to the thought of finally getting his hands on Blaine again and that one time in the backseat of his car. But right now, he just wants to tell his boyfriend all about New York, the buildings so tall they stretch above the tree line in Central Park, epic in the way their whole life is going to be. He's ready to get there. He's not ready to be where they are.

Kurt is quiet for too long, lost, staring at Blaine's desk, until eventually Blaine breaks. "Uh," he says. "We don't have to."

So they don't.

By the time Kurt and Blaine leave Rachel's party together, everyone else is too drunk to be suspicious.

The third time is unplanned, and the forth they try it the other way around. And, it's not that Kurt stops counting in the back of his head, in that place that mentally presses all the flowers Blaine's ever given him between the pages of heavy books so that he can keep forever. It's that as the summer stretches from July into August, it changes to a countdown. Until all of a sudden, Kurt is packing to move to New York for real. Blaine comes over for the big good-bye dinner the Hudson-Hummel's are having. Burt waves away Blaine's offer to help with the dishes after dinner, tells Kurt not to worry, that he can handle them.

Blaine and Kurt go up to Kurt's room. The room already feels like Kurt's gone, all of Kurt's things in boxes stacked up in piles around the usually immaculate floor. All the pictures of the two of them that were stuck in the frame of Kurt's vanity mirror are gone, in one of those boxes, awaiting their new home on a mirror or bulletin board or wall of a New York dorm. Blaine doesn't want to look at where Kurt's already missing, so he looks at Kurt and from there he can't help but kiss Kurt.

Burt knocks on the door at his usually time, right before curfew. Blaine and Kurt pull apart slowly, like they're fighting against the magnetic pull that's always been there between them. When they've separated, sitting next two each other on the edge of the bed, feet firmly on the floor, Kurt says, "Come in."

Burt does, but not entirely. He opens the door just enough to stick his head through. It must be clear what they were doing in their, lips red and kiss-swollen. Burt doesn't comment on it. He doesn't give his usual refrain either. What he says is, "Blaine, if it's okay with your parents, you can stay here tonight so you can say goodbye to Kurt in the morning when we leave."

So they do it for the last time (for now) for the first time in Kurt's bed. In the morning they have breakfast and carry the scattered boxes down to the car. It's not goodbye.

Eventually, their feet will be planted firmly on solid ground. When they wake up together, it will be just another morning. If they'll walk down their block to get coffee, hand in hand, it won't be a big deal. But for now, each step is a leap of faith in the future. For now, Kurt is familiar with the excited swooping in his stomach when he stands on the edge of a precipice and leaps. It started with the largest leap and a single step down the Dalton staircase. Compared to that, this step is easy. So, Kurt leaps.


End file.
